Idaho State-Wide Mobility Plan Visions

The Idaho Department of Transportation is working on a state-wide mobility plan and is gathering visions for the Bike/Pedestrian mobility portion of the plan.

These are due to Mark McNeese at ITD by Jan 31, 2008

Local
I'd start with the vision of BicycleCity.com

"Bicycle City is a planned car-free communities project. Our vision is a future with sustainable cities and communities that are eco-, people- and animal-friendly.

We are interested in promoting bicycle- and walkable-friendly cities anywhere in the world and see the importance of the energy, land and ecosystem saving city at this crucial and auspicious time in history."

I continue by saying, energy security is an important goal which can be assisted by reducing the energy used in transportation systems, and at the same time reducing the alienation produced by large scale auto use (road rage, large parking lots, pedestrian unfriendly spaces, neighborhoods where people don't know their neighbors) .

Moscow is working on revising its Comprehensive Plan and we have been discussing the mobility chapter and moving the language away from "streets" to "thoroughfares" with the intention of recognizing multiple and mixed modalities of transportation. So, just as there is a street hierarchy, street, collector, arterial, I am wanting a hierarchy of non-motorized thoroughfares, and that these be given equal priority in the language and organization or the Comp Plan.

My vision extends to the notion that bike paths are used for multiple purposes. They are linear parks and as well as transportation corridors, and need to be treated in both ways by planners -- recognizing that, just as with car travel, we have multiple goals and values in planning a trip: pleasure, exercise, transportation, etc. Consequently, in addition to planning being multi-modal (park & transportation) signage and public understanding needs to meet multi-modal uses.

In addition to routes, destinations need to be part of the planning. Specifically, parking/storage for bikes is needed, and this should not be second-class "chain-to-a-tree" solutions but offer amenities that are incentives to bike use (such as covered bike parking or secured bike storage (both of which are seen in many european cities))

Destination planning needs to occur at all major employment and commercial destinations and at mode-transfer places, such as bus stops and rail stations.

Snow removal needs to be considered in this planning as well. There are days in Moscow when bike/ped activities would be pleasant enough, but due to poor snow/ice maintenance of the routes is too hazardous.

Regional
Many of the comments above I would apply to my regional vision. Inter-city trails need to be seen as multi-modal (ped/bike) and multi-purpose (recreation/transportation)


State
If the visions above are well implemented, the state-wide vision is probably to have uniform and rich information available online about each regions bike/ped systems and how the regions articulate.

America Loses to Japan - again

Contrast these two stories Ford gets taxpayer money to make muscle car (boo)

DEARBORN, Mich. — Ford Motor Co. is looking to appeal to muscle car enthusiasts with its 2010 Ford Shelby GT500. The latest model of the Shelby pays closer attention to quality and interior detail, Ford said during a preview of the car set to debut at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, which runs Jan. 11-25. The Shelby Mustang is in its fourth model since being reintroduced in 2007. The car was first produced by Ford in collaboration with former race-car driver turned designer, Carroll Shelby, who first refashioned the Mustang in the 1960s. Although the Shelby is a high-end specialty car, Ford hopes that the pumped up design _ racing stripes that adorn the seats _ and performance help show off the company's commitment to high performance and quality.

and Toyota uses its own funds in a down economy to innovate (yeah). Now, explain to me why we bailed out the US auto industry.

TOKYO — Toyota Motor Corp. is secretly developing a vehicle that will be powered solely by solar energy in an effort to turn around its struggling business with a futuristic ecological car, a top business daily reported Thursday. The Nikkei newspaper, however, said it will be years before the planned vehicle will be available on the market. Toyota's offices were closed Thursday and officials were not immediately available for comment. According to The Nikkei, Toyota is working on an electric vehicle that will get some of its power from solar cells equipped on the vehicle, and that can be recharged with electricity generated from solar panels on the roofs of homes. The automaker later hopes to develop a model totally powered by solar cells on the vehicle, the newspaper said without citing sources. The solar car is part of efforts by Japan's top automaker to grow during hard times, The Nikkei said.

Scoring Moscow's Walkability

I just found Walkscore, a tool that uses Google maps and data to calculate a walkability score for a street address. You need to put in a complete address, eg, 900 Travois Way, Moscow, Idaho and then it looks at the kinds of services around you and the distances and calculates a score.

Imagine if this were part of the process included in the SmartGrowth scorecard. Take a measurement from the center of the proposed development and score the walkability. (I went Googling for Idaho Smart Growth because I know their scorecard and found that the US EPA has a more extensive Smart Growth Scorecard site.)

The other day I pointed to Green Chain Stores and highlighted a quote about the problem driving to a green store and suggested a vision for greening Moscow. Add this tool to the list of thinking for that greener city. Probably need to fold in a more complex analysis for bike-ability -- distance is a little less important, but gradients matter and amenities along the way and at the destination (eg good paths and parking) matter.

Bike Boluvards and New Moscow Comp Plan

I was describing my disappointment with the Mobility chapter of the new Comp Plan to a bicycle enthusiast this AM. It turns out that, based on 2000 Census, Moscow is in the top 1% of cities in terms of bike/walk to work.

I was saying that we have this elaborate scheme for classifying arterials, collectors and local streets, which is all about auto use, and we need some 21st century language rather than bringing assumptions from the past. (See previous Bicycle City post for more vision.)

He mentioned Palo Alto Bicycle Boulevard http://www.techtransfer.berkeley.edu/newsletter/99-4/bicycles.php concept.

Very cool idea and fairly simple set of requirements. P&Z had a good conversation last night about shifting the focus of the Mobility chapter to put the ‘alternative’ modes more on par with the vehicular mode and reduce the implicit bias of the document. Its going to Transportation now with P&Z comments.

Phillip Cook supplied these additional links.
From the Bicycle Transportation Alliance (Oregon’s large bike advocacy organization):
http://www.bta4bikes.org/at_work/bikeboulevards.php

From Portland Department of Transportation:
Clinton Street Bike Boulevard project
http://www.portlandonline.com/transportation/index.cfm?c=46371
Portland Bicycle Master Plan
http://www.portlandonline.com/TRANSPORTATION/index.cfm?a=71843&c=34812

From Berkeley CA Office of Transportation
http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/transportation/bicycling/bb/BicycleBoulevard.html

From Streetfilms (out of NY) about bike boulevards in Berkeley CA:
http://www.streetfilms.org/archives/berkeley-bike-boulevards/

Safe Routes to Indian Hills

This post was delayed at request of Moscow Attorney Randy Fife and Community Development Director Bill Belknap until the rezone and PUD process had run their course. The development passed P&Z and Council.

I went to two meetings on April 23, a presentation by Safe Routes to School, a joint UI/Moscow grant that is working on education and programming for school children and opinion gathering among parents regarding non-motorized ways of getting to school. The lion's portion of the grant is being used to build sidewalks in several areas near the JrHi that will make travel to the school, Eagan, and the pool safer. We got here because of a series of, probably small, choices years ago that let developments take place that didn't provide sidewalks. Now Safe Routes is looking at how development has unfolded, where public facilities have located, and seeing routes that seem unsafe or undesirable for walking. And that has become more important as we've come to recognize child obesity and diabetes might be linked, in part, to changes in exercise. Not only is walking probably good for kids, at $4/gallon for diesel it could be good for the District bus budget if we could reduce the number of bus routes, and could be good for our collective carbon footprint if we quite driving kids to school. From many angles, Safe Routes seems like a good thing.

Then I went to the P&Z hearing on Indian Hills 8th addition, a proposal to create a 20 acre R4 zone on Palouse River Drive behind Columbia Tractor. I voted against both the rezone and the preliminary plat for reasons I'll outline.

The Comp Plan sets out the area as Medium Density Residential, which suggests a zoning up to R3. R4 allows higher densities , but the topography of the site was said to preclude achieving those densities. For reasons I still don't understand, staff recommended the R4 classification as the developer requested. R4 is stated in the zoning code to be appropriate for areas near the University and central to the city. Given the site is just over a mile from the UI admin building, and a mile (as you could walk along the abandoned part of Main) from 6th & Main, it does not seem to meet either criteria.

In addition to the items above, which seem to belie the intent of the R-4 zone, the zoning of adjacent parcels is a key consideration in zoning a new parcel -- so one could expect to see requests for more R-4 going east on Palouse River Drive, an action that, I think, would be less likely by having zoned Indian Hills 8th to R-3.

Finally, the safe routes issue. I foresee the same problem that arose at Peterson Dr and Hwy 8 near TriState happening at Styner and Hwy 95. A poor intersection with increasing pressure from pedestrians attempting to walk to the University. That is a second reason I find high density zoning in Indian Hills 8th unwarranted.

As for my vote against the preliminary plat. The proposal created a single 14 acre block, and another large block. Large blocks without pedestrian rights of way across them are antithetical to pedestrian uses, which therefore promotes automobile use. I regret that I missed seeing, and arguing for, a pedestrian ROW from Indian Hills at its extreme western turn around down to the Myrtle St ROW. That could have offered a pedestrian route where the alternative is presently very long.

Moscow Climate Change

Back in Feb 2007, as part of the Moscow Cool Cities series of events, I was asked to serve on a panel addressing community design issues impacting climate change. Here is the PowerPoint I developed for that presentation. The key point is that we are making structural design decisions, like giant parking lots and roads that are pedestrian unfriendly and will get in the way of moving to a less auto-intensive society. The piece is dated with references to events in local politics. (I need to learn to make these into voice overs because there is often quite a bit of the message only in the audio track.)

Bicycle City

Bicycle City describes itself as "a planned community where people live, work and play. Its eco-friendly, car-free design is healthy, sustainable and animal-friendly." So far, Bicycle City does not exist, its a vision shopping for a location. The site lists places in Idaho as potential existing cities to host this innovation, alas, the descriptions of Moscow seem to have been done by somebody at their dining room table in Manhattan -- there is no sense the person knew the local area or even worked very hard with the Moscow website.

Nonetheless, I filled out the form and suggested that Moscow was an interesting site to consider because of the Legacy Crossing redevelopment downtown and the already developing bicycle culture and path system.